My research considers histories and technologies of operatic performance across the 19th and early 20th centuries. I’ve published articles on Verdi and Italian nation-building, operatic mobility, vocal celebrity culture, and early radio. My first monograph, Networking Operatic Italy (University of Chicago Press, 2021) explores how networks of opera production and critical discourse enabled by new transport and communication technologies shaped Italian cultural identities during the years immediately preceding and following the country’s unification in 1861.
I’ve recently started a new book project that looks at ideas and practices of operatic staging in early 20th-century Italy, at the intersection with developments in painting, cinema, spoken theatre and other arts. I'm also preparing (with Ian Schofield) a critical edition of Donizetti's Otto mesi in due ore for Ricordi.
My interest in sonic and auditory cultures led to the establishment of the ‘Sounding (Out) 19th-Century Italy’ research network (2019-20), funded by a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award. I was also a founding member of the Leverhulme network ‘Re-imagining italianità: Opera and Musical Culture in Transnational Perspective’ (2016-19), based at UCL and with collaborators at Cambridge, Brown (USA) and Campinas (Brazil).
I serve on the Advisory Board of Durham's Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies, and I lead Northumbria's cross-university Music Research Group.
Public engagement
I’ve written programme notes for institutions including Glyndebourne, Royal Opera House, Scottish Opera and Liceu Opera Barcelona; articles for Opera magazine; and performance reviews for bachtrack.com.
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